Kindness of Strangers

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

After the frenzied pace of Bariloche we decided to head south and chill out for a few days in El Bolson, a hippy dippy hangout set against a backdrop of sweeping mountains and dusty farmland. El Bolson translates as “The Big Bag,” so named for the towering valley walls that surround the town. But El Bolson also means big bags of artisan beer (nearly 75% of the country’s hops are produced here). Big bags of jewel-like berries, which are made into concoctions ranging from beer and conserves to pies and shakes. Big bags of the iconic and inventive Jauja ice cream, whose modest, flagship storefront boast flavors like dulce de leche with blackberry, calafate with goat’s milk, mate, local raspberry with marscapone, and rose hips. And big bags of South American backpackers. Lots and lots of bum backpackers.

My dad wrote me a brief email about El Bolson, stating that the town was a hippy hangout in the 60s. As far as I can tell, nothing’s really changed in 50 years. Gangs of backpackers maraud about the town, sporting “I Dream of Jeanie” pants, untamed dreadlocks, disheveled clothes, filthy feet, beaded jewelry, and tattoos. They set up camp in the town plaza, shanty towns of tents and drum circles. “I’ve never seen so many mullets and rat tails in my life,” observed Yvonne, one of the three Canadian women we met on the bus from Bariloche who served as our companions during our time in El Bolson.

Maikael and I spent an entire morning on a green park bench lining the plaza, making bets as to who were the real bum backpackers and who were the rich kids pretending to be bum backpackers. As we were doing so, a gangly hipster backpacker, wearing a too-tight T-shirt and a dingy hoodie, walked briskly towards us, looking slightly strung out. He said something too fast, something I couldn’t understand, and was gone as quickly as he had come. I asked Maikael to translate. “I think he asked me if we had any nuts,” responded Maikael, perplexed. “Like, as in walnuts?” I asked. “Yeah, I think so,” said Maikael. Our immediate thought was that “nuts” must be an Argentine bum backpacker code word for drugs. We watched to see if he asked anyone else for “nuts,” but he breezed by the couple with three kids and kept speed walking (no pun intended) through the plaza. Yeah, “nuts” definitely weren’t nuts.

Within minutes, a cute, petite young backpacker skipped up to us, and in her sweetest voice asked, “Hola, chicos, would you like to buy some nuts?” “No, thank you!” we responded cheerily. We exchanged a look of genuine surprise, beginning to wonder if there was a nut conspiracy in town, and watched her make her way around the plaza, heading straight for a family having a picnic in the corner. We craned our necks to see the transaction. She zipped open her backpack, producing plastic baggies of…nuts.

In order to make money, bum backpackers engage in all manner of money-making activities, from hocking handmade jewelry to, apparently, selling nuts. There is a great deal of chocolate produced in the area, requiring, I suppose, vast quantities of fresh nuts. (Later that afternoon, we noticed a sign in a chocolate shop that stated, “We buy nuts.”) It’s the perfect bum backpacker job, requiring zero overhead and 100% profit. Bum backpackers also have a penchant for earning a living as street performers. In other words, there are a lot of clowns in El Bolson, some better than others. A tightrope was constructed in the town plaza, and a garage band played on the sidewalk, all the members donning red clown noses. One guy was pretty talented, carrying out his clown act in front of Jauja and garnering a bulging crowd (I’m not sure how much money he netted, but it was enough to buy an ice cream cone when the show was over). Another bum backpacker, who was considerably older, decided to earn some pesos by contorting his body into yoga-esque shapes. Looks of horror washed across the faces of the crowd as he hitched up his soiled sweatpants, the elastic long gone, between poses.

Perhaps the greatest draw to this hippy haven is the artisan market, one of the largest and most famous in Argentina. Although the town only numbers 18,000 residents, over 320 registered vendors hock their wares, ranging from organic greens to chess sets depicting battles between the Spanish and Mapuche indians, three times a week under canopies surrounding the plaza. The only stipulation is that all products must be handmade, from the roquefort empanadas to the knitted rastafarian hats. I fawned over leather purses and hand-carved wooden journals and drooled over mammoth wheels of local cheese and the largest Easter lilies I’d ever seen. In the end we settled on homemade Belgian waffles, each square filled with shiny, just-picked berries with a smattering of cream and powdered sugar atop. We washed it down with fresh raspberry juice, the ruby seeds settled at the bottom of the giant glass, for US$1.25. Then we sampled local chocolate, creamy corn empanadas, sweet boysenberries, and a Patagonian lamb sandwich, the delicately spiced meat tucked between soft pillows of homemade bread, reveling in the bounty.

The bum backpackers were in heaven, too, making a killing on their bohemian wares and capturing legions of fans in a poor man’s Battle of the Bands. Everyone was happy in The Big Bag.